


Febuwhump 2021: Supergirl Edition

by usa123



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alex Danvers & Winn Schott Jr. Friendship, Allergies, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Hallucinations, Hurt Alex Danvers, Hurt Winn Schott Jr., Hurt/Comfort, Poisoning, Protective Alex Danvers, Team as Family, Training Montage, Truth Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29167443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usa123/pseuds/usa123
Summary: A series of prompt fills for Febuwhump 2021.Day 3: Imprisonment (Imprisonment Pt 1 of 2).Winn is forced to quarantine after coming into contact with an alien toxin.Day 5: "Take Me Instead" (Take Me Instead Pt 1 of 2).After Alex is shot on a mission, Winn surrenders himself to get her out safely.Day 7: Poisoning. When a basket of Al's wings are poisoned, one member of the DEO pays the price.Day 11: Hallucinations (Imprisonment Pt 2 of 2).The alien toxin causes Winn to experience his worst fear.Day 14: "I Didn't Mean It".How Winn angered Pam from HR (referenced in 3x15).Alt 8 (Day 16 replacement): Allergies.It's Winn's turn to take care of one of his friends when they suffer from an allergy attack.Alt 4 (Day 19 Replacement): Identity Reveal. Per Alex's orders, Winn is put through elementary self-defense training. Post-Chapter One ofMore Than A Redshirt.Alt 1 (Day 21 Replacement): Truth Serum. (Take Me Instead Pt 2 of 2).Winn is sure they want him to retrieve the lost data. What they actually want is Supergirl's true identity.
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2151156
Comments: 40
Kudos: 26





	1. Day 3: Imprisonment (Imprisonment Part 1 of 2)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Febuwhump 2021! I will be filling the prompts in four fandoms— _Supergirl_ , _Timeless_ , MCU/Avengers and _Stranger Things_ —and will be posting one work for each fandom filled with only the chapters that belong to that fandom. Almost all of these prompts stand on their own, but a few that have more than one part are notated as such, and will have their second part within the same fandom.
> 
> A full list of prompts is available on febuwhump's Tumblr, or on my own ([usaOneTwoThree](https://usaonetwothree.tumblr.com/)) under the [#febuwhump tag](https://usaonetwothree.tumblr.com/search/febuwhump). On my Tumblr, there's also my finalized plan for the month if you want to look ahead.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 3: Imprisonment_ (which I loosely interpreted as quarantine/isolation) _(Imprisonment Part 1 of 2)_. Winn is forced to quarantine after coming into contact with an alien toxin.

Winn Schott had never been one for animals. He didn't remember having one back in Newark, and had bounced around between too many foster and group homes after his dad's meltdown to really befriend one. In college, he'd been too busy keeping his head down, trying to graduate without causing an incident, and now, well, he was barely home. That was no place for another living being.

That isn't to say he hated them. They were fine as a whole, just not for him.

So when a cat rubbed itself against his leg outside his apartment building while he was fumbling for his keys, he naturally bent down and pet it.

Big mistake.

He was surrounded a split second later by a group of people in black hazmat suits, who had fanned out to block his escape.

Winn shot up almost instantly, his hands lifting to his shoulders, although there were no weapons in sight. He was sure to keep his right hand in reach of his left wrist, where his watch, outfitted with a feature to call Kara, was strapped.

"You are in possession of a highly dangerous creature, sir," one mechanical voice intoned.

Winn actually had to look around to make sure they were talking to him. "Me?" Then, as realization struck, he added, "This cat?"

"That is not a cat, sir."

Winn glanced down at what looked like an orange tabby. "If it's not a cat, what it is?"

"We're not at liberty to discuss it, sir."

One member of the group stepped forward, holding a cage Winn hadn't noticed until right then.

"Just hold still, sir," that person said while bending down and slowly opening the cage door.

The cat's back started to arch.

"I don't think it likes—" Winn was cut off by the cat glowing pink and puffing out its middle.

"Get down!" one of the group shouted as they threw themselves at Winn.

It was too late. The not-cat sneezed and the air around it was filled with a fine pink substance, some of which Winn inhaled before he could put up a hand to protect his mouth.

The next second, the suited being crashed into Winn, throwing them both into the metal security door protecting the entrance to his apartment complex.

"Code purple, code purple!" the being immediately began to shout.

"What's happening? Who are you? What was that?" Winn demanded, as panic began to set in. "What did I breathe in?"

"I need you to remain calm, sir."

"I am calm!" Winn spat. "Now answer my questions."

"Not now, sir. You have been exposed to a potentially lethal substance. We need to get you decontaminated and into isolation, stat."

The being began shoving Winn toward a van, which had appeared out of nowhere.

"Lethal?" Winn parroted, before his brain caught up. "Isolation?"

"Lethal if not treated instantly, which is why we need to get you in the van."

The being grabbed Winn's arm and began dragging him toward the street. Winn heard a screech and saw the not-cat being forcibly loaded into its cage, before one of the suits sprinted off toward another van, which had just pulled up.

Winn's distrust of taking rides with strangers was only tempered by his fear of his job killing him. This wasn't his job per say, but it was alien-adjacent, which was close enough.

"I need to call my friends. Let them know where I am."

"There's time for that later, sir."

Winn dug in his heels, slowing them to a temporary stop. "Now."

"Fine," the suit spat. "But be quick. You're putting other lives in danger the longer you're out here."

Winn pulled his phone from his pocket, opened the camera app, and began a video message. "Apparently I was exposed to some sort of toxin from a not-cat in front of my apartment. There's footage. I'm going pseudo-willingly with these guys," he flipped the camera and showed the suited beings and the van, with a focus on the license plate.

"The FBI," one of the suits said, which caused Winn to frown. That was the agency DEO agents were told to use when someone asked where they work, and Winn had yet to hear about the actual FBI handling alien-related cases. "Do you mean the DEO?" he asked, still filming.

The suit whirled on him. "How do you know about the DEO?"

"I work there! Agent Winslow Schott, analyst."

"Then, Agent Schott, you know how deadly extra-terrestrial substances can be."

"I do. But before I get in that van I need to know your name and who you report to."

"Agent Casey Mulligan, special task force under Director J'onzz, to track down this creature."

"Great, J'onn is one of the people I'm sending this message to." Winn flipped the camera back around. "If you don't hear from me again, use the software on my computer to decrypt the voice encryption, and track fake Agent Mulligan down." Winn smiled his signature grin. "Just kidding, hopefully I'm in and out after a decon shower."

"And a 7-day isolation."

"A _what_?"

In lieu of a response, the suit grabbed Winn's phone, rattled off his badge number, then tapped send.

"Now, will you get in the van?"

Winn still had his watch to call Kara, and assuming Agent Mulligan was telling the truth, he'd be in DEO custody.

"Fine."

Winn stepped into the van, was immediately hit with a wet spray which covered him from head to toe.

"Do I want to know what this is?" he asked as the van peeled away from the curb.

Mulligan didn't respond.

* * *

Thankfully, Mulligan was telling the truth about being a DEO agent, which was how, after being scrubbed and sanitized within an inch of his life, Winn found himself on a floor he'd never been to before. It looked like a hospital wing, except it was enclosed in a large air-tight box, which required an airlock to get in and out of. The wing was broken into individual rooms, which Winn could see housed at least four other individuals. The lighting was tinged blue—

"UV to keep bacteria from spreading," Mulligan informed Winn as he led him into the wing and down the long hallway. Winn's watch and phone were going through a 24-hour strict decontamination process, but his clothes had been burned, leaving him in a set of DEO-emblazoned T-shirt and track pants that Mulligan had fetched from the training room.

"What was that thing?" Winn asked as Mulligan motioned for Winn to take the last room on the right, at least four doors down from the last occupant he'd seen.

"A Pternal, from Planet Afris."

"And they normally… _poof…_ biohazardous material?"

"Once a year. Usually we have them in custody during that time, but that one escaped."

"Wonderful. What do they do the rest of the year?"

"Live out their lives as housecats. They actually make very good pets."

"Except when their dander tries to kill you."

"We caught it early," Mulligan countered as he led Winn into the room and began preparing his arm for an IV. "Unfortunately, even after you're given the antidote, you need to stay here for a week in case you develop symptoms."

"Symptoms of what?" Winn asked, though he suspected he didn't want to know the answer.

"One of the worst flus you've ever had in your life, followed by a long and drawn-out death as your lungs collapse."

"Anyone ever tell you you have a fantastic bedside manner?"

Mulligan shook his head. "But I will keep you alive. That I can promise."

"Good enough for me."

After the IV was flowing, Mulligan handed Winn a paper cup with two pills. "Twice a day. For the symptoms."

"Bottoms up," Winn drawled as he dry-swallowed them, then lay back against the hospital bed. "Can you let my team know I'm here?"

"Sure thing, Agent Schott."

* * *

"Only you could come into contact with a Pternal at the exact time it's the most deadly."

At Alex's voice, Winn launched himself out bed, where he'd been counting the dots of the ceiling tile. "Hi," was all he said, too happy to see her to come up with some sort of witty comeback.

"Are you okay?" Alex asked. Dressed in standard DEO attire and not a hazmat suit, she was relegated to the other side of the glass.

"Yeah. Definitely wasn't what I expected on a Friday, but I'll be fine."

Alex nodded in agreement, which allowed Winn to breathe a sigh of relief. "Mulligan said your blood work looks good," she added. "You might have avoided getting infected."

"Things to be thankful for." Then Winn looked up at Alex. "Do I really have to stay here for a week?"

"Unfortunately, yes. We don't know enough about the toxin to be sure you're in the clear."

"Okay." It wasn't that Winn didn't believe Mulligan, only that he had way more trust in Alex. If she agreed, Mulligan must be aboveboard in the precautions he was taking.

On the other side of the glass, Alex's eyes narrowed into a squint. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked, concern slipping into her tone. "You're looking a little pale."

Winn looked to his left, able to see his reflection in a mirror, which he hadn't noticed before. He thought he looked okay. There was some color in his cheeks, left over from his vigorous decontamination shower, and other than his hair sticking up in every direction, he looked like he was on his way in to work.

"Really? I feel fine," Winn said, turning back to Alex.

His heart stuttered and his breathing stopped when he saw Alex's head elongating, a dark hole forming between her eyebrows and a red substance—blood—leaking out from it. She swayed slightly, then dropped to the ground.

Winn began pounding on the clear glass wall, screaming for help, but no one was around and no one came running.

He dropped to his knees beside her, watching as she struggled to breathe. More wounds began opening all along her body, as she rolled her head to look at him.

"You did this," Alex gasped before her body stilled.

Winn slid away from the glass, his lungs iron and immobile.

He couldn't have. He was in here.

 _That's the point_. He hadn't saved her.

His breath was coming faster now, but was barely pulling any oxygen into his lungs. Spots darkened around his vision.

The last thing he heard before he passed out was a voice, that sounded very much like Alex, screaming, "He's clearly not fine!"

But it couldn't be. Because she was dead.

And it had been his fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't get your pitchforks quite yet! This prompt will be continued on _Day 11: Hallucinations_.
> 
> Up next: _Alt 5 (Day 4 Replacement): Hostage Situation_. Lucy Preston from _Timeless_ is tired of being the one used as leverage. Hopefully her new training from Wyatt and Agent Christopher will make this situation different.
> 
> Thanks for reading! See you tomorrow!


	2. Day 5: "Take Me Instead" (Take Me Instead Part 1 of 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 5: "Take Me Instead" (Take Me Instead Part 1 of 2)_ : After Alex is shot on a mission, Winn surrenders himself to get her out safely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This prompt is independent of _Day 3: Imprisonment_ , but it is another two-parter. _Imprisonment_ will be finished on the 11th, and the second part of this will be posted on the 21st.

"You alright?" Alex whispered as she peered around the corner of a shipping container.

"Peachy," Winn breathed from where he was plastered to the container beside her. "I love volunteering for potentially lethal assignments where I end up running for my life from a group of people with very powerful guns. Oh, and the comms are down, so there's no chance of back-up. 10/10, don't recommend."

"I won't let anything happen to you."

"I know," he replied instantly. "I'm just nervous."

"I got you, Winn," she repeated, taking a second to glance back at him. "But you have to stay with me."

"I guar-an-tee you don't have to worry about that."

"Good. Cos we're leaving in three." She counted down, then they took off across the warehouse.

From the other side of the room, someone began shooting at them, and Alex returned fire while running, hoping she was at least close to hitting the source of the spray. The onslaught didn't stop entirely, but it slowed, allowing her and Winn to make it all the way across the warehouse to another pile of shipping containers that they now cowered behind.

"Are you alright?" she hissed.

"Never better," Winn drawled. "I don't suppose you have another weapon?"

"If I did, don't you think I'd've given it to you five minutes ago?"

"It never hurts to be sure!" Winn hissed. A few shots pinged into the other side of the shipping contains and Winn slid down further, hands clamped over the back of his head. "What's the plan?"

_Get out, don't die,_ was what was running through Alex's head, but she suspected Winn was hoping for something more specific.

"They're probably blocking the main door, so luring them away, or taking them out. Unless you have another idea."

"I haven't seen any other doors or windows," Winn replied. "Unless there's something flammable in these containers, we're shit out of luck."

"Through the front it is then."

Alex slowly slid to the edge of the container and peered around it. There was another pile of containers ten feet away, that much closer to the door, but the warehouse had gone eerily silent. She wanted to stay where they were, but as much as this felt like a trap, this was also the time to act.

"C'mon," she whispered, pointing at the next stack. She held up three fingers, then two, then one, and they were off again, sliding behind the next stack like baseball players stealing a base.

Still, there was no sound in the warehouse besides her and Winn's heavy breathing, which they were both trying desperately to muffle.

"One more, ready? Then we'll be in sight of the door."

She waited for Winn to nod and get his feet under him before they were on the move again.

The second they stepped out from behind the containers, Alex heard a shot from up high an instant before hot agony exploded in her leg. With a cry, she went down, dropping the gun as her hands instinctively moved to cradle her quad.

With barely a pause, Winn grabbed the first part of her he could reach—her arm—and continued sprinting for the next stack, dragging her along with him.

Shots pelted the concrete around them but thankfully, no other bullets made contact.

Then she was no longer moving, and Alex belatedly realized they were safe behind another stack of containers. Now that they were stopped, her hands pressed harder against her leg, eking out a small cry she wasn't able to bite back.

Winn's face was inches away from hers. "How bad is it?" he demanded. When she didn't immediately answer, he lightly slapped her face. "ALEX!" he hissed as loudly as he dared.

"It's bad," she gasped. The bullet had pierced her inner thigh, possibly her artery, judging by the amount and color of the blood rushing through her fingers.

Winn swore, then tugged off the jacket he was wearing and began wrapping it around her leg, careful not to disturb her hands. "Stay with me, okay? I signaled Kara. She should be here soon."

"Okay," Alex tried to say, but her mouth wouldn't form the words. She wanted to get up, wanted to move, but her body was newly lined with lead.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," a voice crooned over the loudspeakers, and though the fog closing over her vision, Alex saw Winn hesitate.

She pulled one hand off her wound, to clasp it on his arm. "Don't you dare," she tried to say, but he just shook his head.

"I got this." He put her hand back on her wound, and knotted his jacket over them. "Just don't die on me, okay?"

"Winn… Winn!"

But it was too late. In the blink of an eye, Winn was standing, hunched over, at the other end of the shipping container.

"I'm coming out unarmed," he shouted, "and if you guys know as much about us as I think you do, you'll know I'm worth way more to you guys alive than dead."

"Winn!" Alex tried again, but he ignored her and gingerly poked a foot out into the aisle, then a hand. When neither got shot off, he took a deep breath and stepped fully away from cover.

Instinctively, Alex flinched, but Winn remained standing and hole-free.

Her training kicked into high gear, and Alex began pulling herself down the length of the shipping container with her elbows, doing her best to not dislodge the hold she had on her quad. Injured as she was though, she was barely covering any ground.

"I know you want Agent Danvers," Winn continued, oblivious to Alex's efforts, "but she's hurt bad. And you know that. I can get back what you lost. So take me instead. I'll go willingly, as long as you call her an ambulance."

There was silence, and in it, Alex was barely breathing, worried she was going to watch her friend get gunned down in front of her. She redoubled her efforts and continued to slide silently down the length of the shipping container. She had to stop Winn before he sacrificed himself for her.

"Do I have your word?" a voice—male, deep, unnaturally clear—said, somewhat hesitantly.

"Yes. Now call the ambulance."

"Winn."

He finally looked back at her. "Stay still, you idiot. Don't make the damage any worse."

"I'm not going to let you do—"

She trailed off as they heard some beeps over the overhead speaker, and a few seconds later, a woman answered.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"There's been a shooting at the port." The voice then rattled off an address and the overhead speakers went silent.

"I did my part," it said after a minute. "Now come to the middle of the room."

"Don't, Winn, please," Alex hissed—pleaded. She couldn't lose him, not like this. But her body was shutting down, brain getting foggy, vision blurry. She was rapidly losing consciousness. She tried to tighten her grip on her leg to slow its progress, but didn't have any success.

When she zoned back in again, Winn was gone.

Cursing unintelligibly, she tried to rise to her feet. With her hands still knotted under Winn's jacket, however, she didn't get far, and crashed to the ground almost immediately. Her leg smacked against the concrete, and within seconds, her world whited out.

* * *

She woke to a world of more distinct white and instantly knew she was in a hospital bed. She tried to lurch upright, but a powerful hand against her shoulder kept her flat.

"Alex, it's me," Kara said, leaning into her line of sight.

"Winn. Where's Winn?" Alex slurred through a cottony mouth.

"We don't know."

"Th'n get me out of this bed so we c'n find him!"

She tried again to get up and failed.

"Alex, you just got out of surgery. You're going to tear your stitches."

"I can put in a new set. Let. Me. Go."

"No." Kara shook her head, lips pressed tightly together. "You were barely breathing when I got there. And there was so much blood."

Alex stopped fighting, mostly because her body had once again developed a leaden quality, and watched her sister intently.

"You barely made it through surgery. They almost lost you." Kara pulled in a ragged breath. " _Please_ just stay here, okay? J'onn is already tearing the city apart looking for Winn, but I couldn't leave you. Not until I knew you were okay."

"I'm okay," she lied. "Just go find Winn."

"Alex."

"Go find Winn, Kara! He gave himself up so you could save me. We _can't_ let him die for me."

"Okay," Kara said unhappily, but instead of moving, she hesitated. "Just stay in bed until I get back, alright? You're really hurt bad."

Alex shook her head in obvious denial of that fact. "I'll stay here as long as I'm on the comms. Audio and video. Vasquez or Demos can get me set up."

Kara nodded, then wrenched her gaze away from Alex. In that moment, Alex felt horrible for forcing her sister to make this choice, but she was going to be fine. Winn, who was somewhere unknown with one of the worst fringe groups in alien history, potentially wasn't.

"I'll send one of them in," Kara said dully before raising her arms above her head.

"Wait, Kara, I'm sorry," Alex tried to say, but her sister was already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued on _Alt 1 (Day 21 Replacement): Truth Serum_.
> 
> Up next: _Day 6: Insomnia_. After his first encounter with the demogorgon, Steve ( _Stranger Things_ ) is having a hard time settling back into everyday life.
> 
> Thanks for reading! See you tomorrow!


	3. Day 7: Poisoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 7: Poisoning_. When a basket of Al's wings are poisoned, one member of the DEO pays the price.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is a standalone prompt, unrelated to the other Supergirl ones posted thus far.

It was another successful day at the DEO: the case had been solved, the bad guys arrested, and now the team was at Al's celebrating a job well done. They had toasted their victory over dinner, and now Maggie was showing Winn how to actually play pool.

It wasn't going well.

Undeterred, Winn blinked hard to clear his vision and lined up another shot.

"It's not that hard," Maggie said from behind him. "No need to be sweating like that."

"I'm not," Winn automatically protested, but then he felt a drop slide down his face. He rubbed the back of his hand against his head, and stared at the droplets beading on the back of it.

He looked up to find Maggie staring at him, with uncharacteristic concern in her expression. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"I…"

Winn's stomach, which had been feeling somewhat uneasy since dinner but had been chalked up to the sheer number of wings he had consumed, rolled and he sprinted away from the pool table, hand pressed against his mouth.

He ran past Alex who was on her feet in an instant, calling out, "Winn?"

He didn't have time to answer.

He pushed through the swinging door and just barely made it to his knees in front of a toilet before he began to retch.

With each heave, pain tore up his abdomen, unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Between bouts, he leaned his head against the cool rim, begging his body to be done with this. But it wasn't, and the pain in his abdomen only built as time went on, even though he'd long since relieved his stomach of his dinner... and lunch... and maybe even breakfast.

Behind him, he heard the door swing open again, but was too spent to turn and see who it was.

Vaguely, he heard people swarm around him.

Someone was handing him a bottle of water, someone else was pulling his head away so they could flush the toilet. He wanted to protest, but his stomach cramped cruelly, sending him doubling over as pain spread through his insides.

"What's wrong?" someone asked, pressing fingers against his neck, another set taking his temperature.

Their hands were too cold. Winn tried to pull away, but couldn't make his body act.

"Hurts," was all he could mumble about before his stomach rolled again. He just barely managed to throw his head over the bowl before he heaved again... and again... and again.

The subsequent waves of pain were too much for his already taxed brain to handle. He was conscious long enough to feel someone catch his head, to keep it from connecting into porcelain, before his world washed out to white.

* * *

"What do you mean, poisoned?" J'onn roared.

"That's what the results show, sir," a new lab tech, Jessica Hartley, said timidly, looking very much like she wanted to be done with this conversation.

"What kind?"

"We're not sure."

"How can you know he was poisoned and not be sure by what?"

"His symptoms are a perfect match, sir. As we speak, Agent Schott's blood is being run against all known poisons to determine which one was used."

"Can't you give him a general antidote?"

"No, sir. All we can do is manage the symptoms until we find the specific one that he was dosed with."

J'onn scrubbed a hand along his forehead, forcing himself to focus. "Do you have any idea how he was poisoned?"

"Based on the quick onset and Officer Sawyer's comment that he didn't experience symptoms until he was playing pool, I would guess it was in the last meal he ate, probably at the bar. And since none of you are sick, I would assume it was in something only he ate."

"Thank you," J'onn said before leaving the room.

He was on the phone the second he was in the hall. "Alex, Winn was dosed at Al's. Most likely his chicken wings."

"I'm on it," she said before hanging up.

* * *

It didn't take her long to track down the busboy who had delivered their food that night. He was off that morning, but a quick call to Al himself had given Alex his address. Which was how she was in his apartment, sitting at his kitchen table, confronting him about it.

He was sweating bullets, tapping his fingers nervously, and looked about a split second away from bolting.

"I delivered the wings right off the pass," he squeaked out.

"Did you stop anywhere on the way?"

"No. Al hates it when we do that. I took it straight to your table, then bussed tables on the way back."

"Then why do you seem so nervous?"

The guy glanced to the right, where Alex could just barely see a bong sticking out of a cabinet.

"I don't care about that, unless you were you high last night," she said.

The guy seemed to relax slightly. "No! Never at work."

Alex stared at him for a long moment then, reading truth in his expression, nodded. "Let me know if you think of anything?" she said, not really phrasing it as a question, as she handed over her card.

"Sure. Of c—yes, Agent Danvers."

"Thank you."

* * *

Sitting in her car outside the busboy's house, Alex relayed the news to J'onn then called Doctor Kirby to check in on Winn, who was stable, and resting as peacefully as could be expected. They'd pumped his stomach on his arrival, but his symptoms were persisting, suggesting some of the poison had made it further down his digestive tract.

Feeling rather helpless, Alex decided to go back to Al's to interview the cooks. However, as she walked back in, she found them racing around in an organized fashion, but still very clearly covering a missing station.

"Who's supposed to be here?" she asked over the pass, not yet wanting to fully disrupt their work while they were so clearly understaffed.

"Mario was supposed to be here early to prep. Didn't show up."

"And is that unusual for Mario?" she asked, feeling the stirrings of a lead in her gut.

"Dunno. He only started a week ago."

"Was he working last night?"

"Yes." Then the head chef looked back into the kitchen. "Sorry, ma'am. I have to go."

"I understand."

She let herself into the kitchen to talk to the manager, who was quick to pass on Mario's information when she showed her badge. Unfortunately, all the information on his application was fake.

She took the security tape and drove it over to the DEO herself.

"I need to find one of the chefs," she announced upon her arrival. "Goes by Mario. Probably an alias."

"On it," the analysts said.

* * *

Four hours later, facial recognition had returned a match for Matt Janson, who wasn't inherently interesting in himself. However, he was dating Jena Reiman, an alien from Zenon, who they had arrested for attempted murder and who, last week, had been sentenced to eight years at Van Kull.

"Watch each other's sixes," Alex said, as she led the tact team into Janson and Reiman's shared apartment.

It was empty, but a deep search revealed a bottle tucked in the back corner of a cabinet, which was immediately run to the DEO lab.

An antidote was synthesized and Winn, who had been steadily worsening over the past few hours, began to plateau. It was one of the few times Alex was glad to see an utter lack in improvement, as it meant he wasn't deteriorating anymore.

"The chicken wings?" Winn muttered when he came around later that night.

Reiman had been found at the bus station, trying to buy a ticket to the Albuquerque.

"If it makes you feel better, he thought he was poisoning the entire table," Alex said. Reiman had shouted as much as they'd arrested him, along with a multitude of derogatory comments. "He clearly hasn't met you before," she said, knocking her hand against his.

"I might never eat another chicken wing again," Winn said, sagging back into his pillow, and looking utterly crestfallen.

"I highly doubt that." Alex pulled a small device from her pocket and handed it over. "Vasquez made that for you. You can stick it in your food and it will scan for known poisons."

"Have I told her I loved her lately?" Winn said, beaming as he began to examine the device.

"She says she'll take her payment by you showing back up at work next week."

Winn smiled as he placed the device on the laminated rolling table. "I'm sure we can make that happen."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: _Day 8: "Hey, Hey, This Is No Time To Sleep"_. Sam (Avengers) is knocked out during battle and has a vision of a familiar face.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	4. Day 11: Hallucinations (Imprisonment Part 2 of 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 11: Hallucinations. The alien toxin causes Winn to experience his worst fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuation of _Day 3: Imprisonment_. Warnings for mildly graphic imagery of Winn's worst fear.

Winn jerked upright, panting. He'd had the worst dream: he'd watched Alex die from an unknown injury right in front of him, and in his quarantine, he hadn't been able to do anything about it.

...At least, he hoped it had been a dream.

He scanned the room for his phone—any phone—but found none. Odd. Maybe they hadn't decontaminated his yet.

There was a nurse call button built into the side of his bed, and he poked at it.

"What do you need, Agent Schott?" a voice asked from the speaker above.

"Can I see Agent Danvers? Please," he added after a pause.

"No, sir."

"Why not?"

"I'm not at liberty to say, sir."

Well, screw that.

"I need to see Agent Danvers, Supergirl or Director J'onzz. Now."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Get one of them in here, or I will find them myself."

"We cannot allow you to do that, Agent Schott."

Too late.

Winn was off the bed and at the electronic locking mechanism of the door in seconds. It needed a screwdriver to pull off the panel. He didn't have one on him, but that didn't matter. Using the sliver of metal from the underside of the rolling table, Winn fashioned one and pried open the panel. From there, it was only a matter of crossing a few wires before the door popped open.

"Agent Schott, I'm warning you," but the speaker fell silent before she could finish.

Seconds later, alarms began blaring and hazard lights lining the hallway flashed.

"Code blue!" a different mechanical voice intoned, over and over again.

Winn had seen enough medical dramas to know that meant someone was dying.

He waited until a bunch of people raced past him before sliding out into the hallway.

There was a closet across from him, door cracked open, filled with white hazmat suits. Conscious of the alien toxin he'd been exposed to earlier, Winn slid into one, zipping it up with some difficulty, before following the doctors.

They were crowded outside a room, medical terms flying left and right. The mass cracked open as a nurse peeled away to fetch some equipment, and Winn saw James, clad in his Guardian gear, except…

Except there was a giant hole over his heart and his skin beneath his face plate was ashy, lifeless. His eyes stared blankly at the ceiling as the rest of the doctors peeled away somberly.

"Call it," one said, and Winn fell to his knees.

He had failed James too.

 _How was this possible?_ His brain demanded to know, but that thought was shut out, lost in a wave of guilt and remorse.

He should have been better. This was his fault. His suit hadn't stopped whatever had taken out most of James' chest.

"Agent Schott?!" someone shouted and he turned to look up.

It was J'onn, except most of J'onn's face wasn't there. A deep set of scratches crossed from one temple to the opposite jaw, marring most of his features.

"You did this," J'onn hissed.

"No," Winn shouted, scrambling backward until his back crashed into a wall.

"Yes, you did. You weren't smart enough, clever enough. We all died because of you."

"All?"

J'onn pointed right, and there was Kara's body, the suit charred and flaming. There wasn't much of Kara left.

Winn looked back at J'onn, his vision narrowing to a small tunnel.

"Keep looking," J'onn ordered.

He didn't want to, but he did.

There was a trail of bodies: Vasquez, Demos, Cat. Maggie, Lyra, Chester Dunholtz. Cassie, the first person who had given him the time of day after his dad was indicted; Elsa, his landlady. His mother.

"You did this," she rasped, through lips tinged blue. "You could have saved us."

"I tried," he mumbled. "I did."

"It wasn't good enough."

Winn whirled around to see his father looming over him. Unlike everyone else, he was in one piece, fully healthy.

"You're becoming just like me," Winn Schott Sr. said with a smile, revealing two rows of perfectly white teeth.

"I'm not!" Winn spat.

"You are."

Senior motioned around the room, which had filled with bodies, stacked at all angles.

"Every one of them you could have saved, but you failed. It is what I would have done."

"No!" Winn threw out his hands to keep his father from coming closer, and somehow pushed himself through the wall he was leaning against.

He came to a stop in a room of darkness. At least that's what he thought.

It was filled with bloody and disfigured faces—faces he recognized—dancing, smiling, taunting him. Then there was an announcement, spoken like a news report.

"Today, Winslow Schott Jr, otherwise known as the new Toyman, has picked up where his father left off. He detonated an explosive on the ground floor of National City's FBI office, levelling it in only seconds. As of now, there are no survivors."

"No," Winn gasped, clutching at his heart, which was threatening to beat out of his chest.

_You need to calm down._

"No, I wouldn't. I couldn't."

"Toyman also planted a bomb at the Nats game, killing 660 people in the subsequent explosion. He had rigged the doors to close, trapping the spectators inside."

"No."

_Winn, calm down!_

"I can't. I didn't do it," he mumbled. "Didn't. Couldn't."

_We know. Winn._

It sounded like Alex, but it couldn't be. Alex was dead. So was everyone else he cared about.

 _Your heart is going to give out_.

What did it matter? He didn't have anyone else to share it with. No one would want to be close to him after this.

 _We do._ I _do._

There was a crash across his face that Winn only barely felt. It however caused the gruesome faces to fade away, briefly, and Alex's fully healthy face to appear.

"You didn't kill anyone!" she shouted, but her face was swallowed by the taunting and jeering ones again.

Winn could barely breathe as the faces loomed closer, shouting his failures.

 _Shock him_.

An electric current surged through his body, stealing his breath, and thankfully, blessedly, his vision as well.

* * *

"Restoring sinus rhythm," one doctor said, pulled the defibrillator away from Winn's chest.

From behind the safety of her hazmat suit, Alex's gaze flickered between Winn's sweating, shaking, positively terrified form, and the monitors which had settled in their screeching.

"He's coming back to us."

It sure didn't look like it. Winn had less color than the sheets surrounding him, and his body, for the first time in an hour, laid limply against the bed.

"We need to get him cooled down."

A nurse appeared, popping open ice packs, which she and the rest of the staff stuck around Winn's neck and groin, and under his arms and feet.

He groaned, almost imperceptibly, and Alex was across the room in an instant, taking Winn's hand in her gloved one.

"You said it would present as flu," she stated, as levelly as she could while she turned to face the doctors. They were dealing with an alien contaminant, so it wasn't entirely their fault, but they were _so_ wrong in this case and Winn was suffering because of it.

"I never said we were an expert about this toxin," one of the doctors replied. "In all our other patients, it has presented with flu-like symptoms."

"Then why is Winn so different?"

The doctor looked over at her. "Someone with your background should know better than to ask that question."

Alex sucked in a long breath and nodded. "You're right. Sorry." Without waiting for them to respond, she continued, "So what are our next steps here?"

"We've drawn his blood, and we need to adapt the antitoxin to deal with the symptoms he's experiencing."

"How long will that take?"

"We're hoping not long." The doctor shot another look at Winn's vitals, which were still, even with Alex's knowledge, far too high.

He looked back at her. "You should stay with him. See if you can bring him around."

_As if she was going anywhere else._

"Keep me updated," was all she said, before turning back to Winn. "Hey, Winn. You in there?"

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, he didn't respond.

"That's okay. You can rest. Everything's okay now. They're synthesizing an antitoxin just for you, because God forbid you do something half-way like everyone else who was infected." Then she paused. "Sorry it took us so long."

She leaned forward, resting her plastic-covered head on Winn's arm. "Come back to us," she begged. "Please."

She looked up hopefully, but Winn hadn't moved in the slightest. Somewhat disappointed, she sighed. If it had been a movie, he would have woken up just then. In real life, they'd have to wait a little bit longer.

"Whenever you're ready," she said. "We'll be here."

* * *

When Winn did wake up, the first thing he realized was that literally everything hurt. His muscles were tight and sore, like he'd gone running—which he had only done once, thank you very much, and it was to impress a girl.

There was a weight on his arm that he couldn't dislodge.

"Winn?"

 _Alex_.

But he couldn't open his eyes. He didn't want to see the bullet hole between hers and the life fading from them.

He screwed his eyes closed tighter, turning away from her voice.

"Not real."

"I am."

There was a ripping of Velcro, and then something warm and solid was sliding into his hand.

"It's me," not-Alex said, tightening her grip around Winn's hand. "I'm very real. Just open your eyes."

"No."

"Winn, do you trust me?"

 _Yes_.

Still squeezing his eyes closed, he opened his right one a few millimeters. And there Alex was. Whole and healthy, staring at him with blurry eyes and concern etched into her expression.

"Alex," he breathed, opening both eyes and launching himself at her.

She absorbed his weight easily and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close.

Tears he hadn't been aware he was holding back began to fall. He couldn't stop them, nor did he really want to.

"Let it out," was all Alex said, beginning to rub circles on his back. "It's okay. I got you."

"You were dead. All dead," he mumbled into her shoulder. "I couldn't save you."

Her breath caught in her throat, and he felt her jaw clench as her hand stopped rubbing his back. "God Winn."

"Supposed to be flu," he stuttered out miserably.

"I know," she said, her voice cracking slightly. "I know. I'm sorry, Winn."

Then she pulled back and held his face in her hands.

"Just in case you need to hear this: you do more for us every day of the week than anyone else I know. You have saved us hundreds of times over. I trust you, Winn. Always have, always will."

Then she pulled him into another hug without waiting for his response, holding him and muttering reassurances while he cried himself out. When she felt him slack even more into her grip, she gently guided him back to the bed.

"I'm sorry," Winn said again, but with his eyes closed and his vitals slowing, she couldn't tell if he'd meant about the tears, or about earlier.

Either way, she just gripped his hand tight and settled in beside him, determined to be there when he woke again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: _Alt 9 (Day 12 Replacement): Gunpoint_. After everything supernatural Steve ( _Stranger Things_ ) had dealt with the past three years, this was how he was going to go: shot by a human who was most likely raiding Melvald's cash register for a few hundred bucks.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	5. Day 14: "I Didn't Mean It".

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 14: "I Didn't Mean It"._ How Winn angered Pam from HR (referenced in 3x15).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: It's whump-lite, but after everything Winn goes through this month, he needs a break :)
> 
> A/N 2: Yes, this chapter was always this short, even before internet issues pushed me two days behind posting schedule.

"How long are you going to keep me here?" Winn demanded, staring at the thick metal door, which led to freedom. It was only three feet away but it might as well have been a mile.

There was a long metal table between him and the well-dressed red-headed woman who sat on the other side of it, blocking his retreat.

"Until you give me everything I need." She bent down slightly, causing Winn to flinch, but instead of a weapon, she came back with a massive stack of paperwork. Her jacket shifted slightly, allowing Winn to see the badge clipped to her inner shirt pocket: Pam. From HR.

"I'm going to be here all night," he protested as the pile thumped against the metal table, echoing slightly through the room.

"That is the cost of running into the field without the proper safety precautions, Agent Schott," the woman said, sitting back and interlacing her fingers on the table. "Maybe next time you'll think twice about doing so."

"My fri—my team—was in danger. They needed me."

"That is no excuse, Agent Schott," the woman replied. "An agent in the field must be battle-ready at all times."

"Look, can I just say 'I didn't mean it', promise I'll never do this again, and we can call it good?" he asked, looking hopefully at her.

She just shook her head. "And in case you think I'm enjoying this, I'm missing my orchestra seats for _Hamilton_ for this."

_Ouch._

"Well, if you leave them with me, I will return them—"

"Does this look like my first rodeo, Agent Schott? Letting you leave the room without signing those papers practically guarantees I will never see them again. I'll wait here until you're done."

Winn looked at the papers and decided she was serious. Sighing, he slid the stack of papers toward him and flipped through the first few pages.

"Are these in triplicate?" he asked in disbelief, looking back up at Pam.

"Yes. Perks of working for a government agency. Maybe you'll keep that in mind the next time you decide to ignore protocol."

"I told you…" Winn began to protest before he bit his tongue and held out his hand for a pen. Better to not draw this out anymore and just get it over with.

"And if you're thinking of hitting your head against the table to get out of filling out these forms, I can assure you that will only result in more forms. Also in triplicate."

"I wasn't until now," Winn muttered, but before Pam could respond, he clicked the pen, looked down at the stack, and began to write.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: _Day 15: "Run! Don't look back!"_. The Time Team (Timeless) struggles to get home after an encounter with Garcia Flynn.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	6. Alt 8 (Day 16 replacement): Allergies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Alt 8 (Day 16 replacement): Allergies_. It's Winn's turn to take care of one of his friends when they suffer from an allergy attack.

Few and far between were the days when Alex regretted coming into work. Today however was one of those days.

Her allergies had flared up almost overnight, but whether it was because of the plants blooming in the California spring weather, a new cleaning agent being used at the DEO or her apartment, or someone's perfume on the subway, she wasn't sure. Regardless of the source, the end result was the same: her head was throbbing, her nose leaking, and her chest ached with every breath.

She should have called out sick, but there were a few meetings she was attending on J'onn's behalf, while he interfaced with President Marsdin, and she had probie training that afternoon. Not that she didn't trust Vasquez to put the new recruits through their paces, but she did want at least some of them to return. So she'd downed at least three Benadryl, taken the subway instead of driving, and suited up.

The day had quickly gone from bad to worse. The meetings were boring but long, and Alex had done her best to pay attention over the pounding in her head. The cool metal table beneath her hands was so inviting, she wanted to lay her head against it to ease the ache. But she couldn't, so she didn't.

She was so excited to get out of the stifling room that she wasn't paying attention when she swung open the large metal door, which almost bowled over Winn, who had been carrying a Styrofoam container from the cafeteria. It had gone flying into the air, and Alex had just watched it careen toward the ground, her limbs unresponsive.

Winn thankfully managed to save the container with only a few inches to spare. He looked up, peeved, ready to rip someone a new one, but his expression softened when he saw Alex.

"Hey, everything okay?" he asked as he straightened up.

"Yeah, why wouldn't it be!" she snapped, scowling at the expression on Winn's face. She knew she didn't look up to par, but the abject concern on his face meant she looked worse than she had hoped.

He recoiled slightly, which would have made Alex feel bad had her head not been pounding so viciously.

"Sorry," he said. "You just don't seem like yourself."

"It's been a long day," she replied. Then, to her horror, she was unable to fight back a snuffle. She hurried away before Winn could call her out on it.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, Alex only had to step into the training room to discover the A/C was out. Her clothes stuck to her in minutes, and her head was feeling cottony. She didn't need to be showing weakness in front of a bunch of 19-year-olds who were convinced they could wipe the floor with her, so she just cursed under her breath, and discretely swiped her leaky nose on the Kleenex tucked up her sleeve...

And was it just her or was this bunch especially brash? She'd doled out more push-ups for their insubordination that she could never remember have doing so in recent years.

About an hour in, she received a page over the loud speaker.

"P1 Emergency for Agent Danvers. Room 330," Winn's voice rang out. "Agent Vasquez en route to swap."

It didn't escape Alex's notice how relieved the probies looked, but she didn't have the reserves to call them out on it.

She nodded at Vasquez when she arrived, curtly filled her in on where they'd left off, and made her way to room 330, which, as far as she knew, was a rest room, and not a conference room. Sure enough, following the signs, she landed at a rest room.

"Is this a joke?" she asked to the closed door which quickly cracked open.

"Nope," Winn said with a grin, gesturing for her to slide out of the way so he could open the door more.

As he did so, Alex saw nothing in the room but blackness: no conference table, no video chatting station, nothing. "Where's the P1 Emergency, Winn?"

"You'll see." With a sweeping motion, he gestured for her to follow him in.

Her suspicion raised, Alex only took one step inside the door, just enough so she could see that the room wasn't pitch black, just dimly lit. In the middle of the room, there was a reclining chair, which Winn patted the back of.

Alex wasn't sure what was going on, but she wasn't having any of this.

"I have work to do," she said. She turned back to the door, which immediately slammed closed. She pulled on the handle, which didn't turn either direction.

"Winn!" she growled as she turned around to see him, hands raised to his shoulders, holding a remote.

"Please don't fire or unfriend me!" he said as he shuffled over so the chair was between him and Alex. "But I'm doing what I have to to make sure we don't see the highest attrition rate on record!"

That was when Alex realized there was a humidifier running in the room, and her head, for the first time today, wasn't aching.

"What's all this?"

"When you nearly bit my head off earlier, I knew you weren't feeling well, so I talked to Vasquez and got your class covered, so now you just get to rest for the next two hours."

She couldn't… could she? The chair looked so nice and the quiet was really improving her various aches.

Then, Winn held up a box of her favorite tea and pointed to the electric kettle which was steaming in the background, and the last of her resolve crumbled.

"Fine," she said, gently lowering herself into the chair.

"Don't shoot me, 'k?" Winn said, before he poked a button in the side of the chair, and the headrest began to recline while her footrest lifted. She must have sighed as the tension in her chest lessened, for Winn just chuckled. "See?"

Then something cold was draped over her eyes, and she could have cried in relief.

"Just stay there okay? Two hours."

"Okay," Alex muttered drowsily, as the day's exhaustion caught up to her in a rush. "J'onn is going to kill you," she slurred with her last vestiges of consciousness.

"He can't; he needs me," Winn said, with only the slightest bit of uncertainty in his voice. Then, much more confidently, he added, "Get some rest, Alex."

She was already asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: _Day 17: Field Surgery_. To fill an ask by JaggerK, we're reworking [Weekend at Barton's](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21160427/chapters/50363645), one of my other fics, to include the Barton family. Full summary is "Clint finds out Steve has maxed out his PTO and convinces him to spend the long weekend at his family's house in Iowa. Unfortunately, the relaxing vacation does not go as planned." Condensed into 3k words.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	7. Alt 4 (Day 19 Replacement): Identity Reveal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Alt 4 (Day 19 Replacement): Identity Reveal_. Per Alex's orders, Winn is put through elementary self-defense training. Post-Chapter One of [More Than A Redshirt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25772644/chapters/62594029).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: For _mmorgan317_ and _theneccesityof_ , who asked for this training montage. Many, many thanks to _16woodsequ_ for answering my Tumblr post and sending me six pages of "Introduction to Fighting 101". This fic wouldn't be the same without her insights!

All it had taken was one wrong step to ruin DEO Agent Hansen's career. One mission, one pothole, one completely torn ACL that had had to be surgically reconstructed. He'd never quite recovered from it, hadn't been able to pass the physical to return to the field. He was too good at what he did for the DEO to let him go, however, so they'd taken his experience and moved him into the training sector, specifically instructing the wide-eyed newbies who thought they had it in them to be DEO agents.

To say he was bitter about the assignment while subpar agents like Fredriksen, who couldn't tell a right hook from an uppercut went out day after day, was something of an understatement. The newbies themselves were fine—most a little-strung and neurotic, who would wash out of the field agent department and into a desk job—but the job on a whole still felt beneath him and his abilities. But since it was this or a desk job, he'd grudgingly accepted that this was what he did now.

Today, however, the paper pushers had stooped lower than Hansen thought possible. He'd shown up to work with a file folder and two hours of his day blocked off for the next four weeks. In that time, he'd be training an analyst, who probably wouldn't be able to dodge a punch unless it came with a banner announcement of its intent.

In all his years, he'd never heard of an analyst being trained, which meant the man was being punished, or he was something special. Hansen didn't open the file to find out.

Still, he reported to the training room at 0900 to find a dark-haired man dressed in appropriate training attire standing in the middle of the room, one foot tapping nervously against the ground.

"Stop that," Hansen barked as the quick motions echoed around the concrete room.

The man did in an instant, and he even straightened up to his full height (or lack thereof).

"Agent Schott?"

The man nodded.

"You know what you're here for?"

The man nodded again.

Hansen sighed, then made a lazy circle around the room with his index finger. "Two laps to get warm then we'll see what you can do."

As Schott took off, Hansen was shocked to discover his running form—while not great—wasn't completely awful. The man might have done an athletic thing or two in his life.

"Are you going to teach me to fire a gun?" Schott asked, slowing to a stop in front of Hansen and not breathing all that hard.

Hansen was mentally preparing a whole tirade about how this wasn't like TV and getting shot hurt and shooting someone was a very serious action that you needed to be prepared for, but decided it wasn't worth his oxygen.

"No."

Schott actually looked relieved.

"Do you know how to throw a punch?" Hansen asked, returning to the matter at hand.

Schott nodded.

"Let's see."

Yet again, Schott surprised him—not that Hansen would let his face show it. Most newbies without prior training tucked their thumb inside their fingers when making a fist, which only increased the chance it'd get broken on contact. Schott left his on the outside, curling under his knuckles.

His stance was also pretty decent: wide enough to look stable, but not so much that he'd have trouble moving. His form though could use some work. It was all shoulder, very little body.

Hansen walked behind Schott and kicked at his feet until Schott spread them a little. "More balanced, comfortable, you could stand like that for a long time."

Back in front of Schott, he turned around to face the analyst. "You're swinging with just your arm. You want to use your whole body, generate some momentum, do some real damage."

"Torque," Schott said, nodding quickly, before he tried again.

"Better."

When Schott finally had the motion right, Hansen pulled on a set of hand pads, and some wraps for Schott, who slid them on with a surprising amount of dexterity.

"Left fist, right hand," Hansen ordered, jiggling his right pad.

Schott swung, making a decently solid contact.

"Punch _through_ the pad."

Schott nodded and punched the exact same way without any change.

" _Through!_ "

"I am!" Schott grumbled, sounding frustrated.

Just as Hansen suspected. Some sort of wannabe agent washout.

"You're not." Hansen landed a punch into Schott's raised glove. "See how I slowed before impact. That's reflected in the punch."

He pulled back and punched again, and this time, Schott's glove slipped back to absorb the blow. "Harder, right? _Through_ the pad."

Schott set his expression and punched again.

Better.

Hansen took Schott through a few combinations then allowed the analyst to get a drink. While he did so, Hansen considered his next course of action. He'd planned on spending way more time on the basics of punch-throwing which had left him… not _unprepared_ , but with a surprising amount of time left.

Given that Schott wasn't being trained for active duty, it seemed like the best use of their combined time would be teaching him now to Not Die.

"For someone with your stature, it will be far better for you to outrun them," Hansen said, to which Schott scowled. "But if you do get grabbed, it's important to know how to get free."

"Sing," Schott said.

"What?"

"Solar plexus, instep, nose, groin," he said, making motions with his elbow.

And while that technically wasn't untrue, Hansen wasn't going to have any of that nonsense in his gym.

"Get in the ring," Hansen growled as he pulled on some protective gear of his own. "Unlike what you see in the movies, if someone grabs you from behind, the best thing to do is go limp. If that doesn't work, stomp on their feet as you so previously mentioned, or headbutt them."

"Sounds a lot like singing," Schott muttered as Hansen parted the ropes.

Hansen made another circling motion with his finger. "Four laps for backtalk."

Schott stared back at him, mouth open.

"Eight if you finish that sentence."

Schott clamped his jaw closed, nodded, and set off.

At the end of the two-hour mark, Hansen left the training area without saying goodbye to Schott. Sure, the man was marginally more qualified than Hansen had originally thought, but that didn't detract from the fact that he was still an analyst, and that Hansen must have really pissed someone off in order to land this assignment.

"He's a desk monkey, sir," Hansen protested, half an hour later, to his SO, who shrugged.

"I don't make the rules, Hansen. Just train the analyst, keep your nose clean, and I'll see what I can do."

Hansen barely kept the scowl from his face. "Yes, sir."

* * *

One week passed and Schott was fairly proficient with getting out of holds—in blocked training. Today, they would be trying it while sparing.

"Mornin'," Schott said, as Hansen stormed into the training area.

"Go get warm," Hansen barked, not in the mood for Schott's mouth today. There must be a storm brewing for his knee was aching something fierce, and nothing he'd tried so far that morning was alleviating it.

Schott wisely only nodded as he headed off.

Even though he was glowering internally, Hansen led Schott through a proper warm-up and then they set out to spar. They stared out in slow-motion, working through some maneuvers with Schott learning how to block.

"Good," Hansen said, feeling some of the stress of his day slip away with the exercise. The rage was still there, burning bright, but he was keeping himself in control and doing his job, as sad and pathetic as it was now.

He continued through the chest block, and when he thought Schott had a good handle on it and could block in sequence, they moved onto the face block. When he had a good grasp on that too, they began working in less regimented sequences.

Which was working fine, until there was a noise at the hallway, and Schott glanced over just as Hansen was throwing a punch that Schott was supposed to block.

His fist cracked against Schott's cheek and the analyst stumbled back, his gloved hand going up to his face.

"That's why you keep your hands up at all times, and don't let yourself get distracted," Hansen said, knowing the blow from his pads had been glancing at best. It had been an accident, but a good teaching moment—though that phrase made him nauseous to hear. "You think the person you're fighting is going to stop just because you stopped paying attention? That's when they'd go harder." He stepped back and settled back into his neutral stance. "Get back in position, Schott!"

Schott was looking at the ceiling and swallowing hard.

"Schott, get back into position!"

When Schott finally looked down again, his eyes were watery, and his cheek red. "For the record, I'm not crying," he was quick to say, his voice slightly muffled. "My eyes won't stop watering."

"Hits 'round your nose do that. And that'll be exactly what your opponent wants to happen. So, get back in position, and defend yourself."

He hardly waited for Schott to return to posture before throwing another punch.

* * *

It was only much later after Hansen was getting ready to leave for the day that he found Schott in the command center, holding an ice pack against his cheek while typing at a keyboard one-handed. Agent Danvers was standing behind him, looking at him unhappily.

The conversation was too soft for Hansen to pick up, but he saw the body language: the way Danvers, who was all angles, was looking at Schott in concern. Schott was one of Danvers' then, one of her golden few. Hansen hated office politics as much as the next person—one of the perks of being a field agent with freer reign—but resignation settled into his stomach as he realized that he'd have to play this game.

Danvers was Jonzz's right-hand man. If he pissed her off via her analyst, who knows what she could have Jonzz do to him.

He'd have to be more careful, going forward, to not incur her wrath.

* * *

And he was. Hansen pulled back in their sparring sessions, careful to not further harm Danvers' agent. If Schott noticed, he didn't say anything, and left each day sweaty and out of breath.

At the same time, Hansen waited with baited breath for his sentence to be extended again, but it appeared Schott hadn't reported him for misconduct. Which was good because it really had been an accident, but given the tongue lashing he'd gotten before that, it would be easy to see how the two were connected. Schott didn't mention it again, nor did Hansen.

At the end of the week, Hansen was cleaning up after another session with Agent Schott when none other than Danvers walked through the door.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

He knew it was more rhetorical, but he answered anyway. "Cleaning up."

She wasn't amused. "With Agent Schott. You're not training him the way do other agents."

"He's an analyst, not heading out into the field."

"Wrong. We sometimes have need for him in the field. He needs to be able to defend himself." She planted herself in front of Hansen. "I looked at the footage. You're pulling your punches."

Hansen scowled at her and continued tidying the room. "I'm being appropriately careful for someone with no previous combat training," he responded mechanically.

"You're holding back because you know he's my friend." Alex leaning over so he could see her face. "Tell me I'm wrong."

Hansen looked up at her, made full eye contact, and repeated, "I'm training him appropriately for someone with no previous combat training."

Alex looked at him for a long moment, lips pursing slightly, before she nodded. "See that you train him like a regular field agent. We need him out there."

"If I do, ma'am, I don't want to hear anything to the contrary. My methods are what they are."

"I understand that, Hansen. Which is why I assigned Agent Schott to you. Don't make me regret it."

Without waiting for a response, she strode out of the training room.

* * *

Three long weeks later, Schott and Danvers were facing off in the training ring. This was Schott's final test: beat Danvers and he didn't need to be training for two hours every day; lose and he'd continue until he could.

Hansen watched as Danvers and Schott circled each other, padded hands held up to their faces and ready. Danvers led with a punch that Schott easily blocked.

"Is that all you got?" he mumbled around his mouth guard.

Danvers grinned then attacked. It was slower than Hansen had seen her with other agents, but it was still an impressive speed. Schott's initial response was to step back, but then he held his ground and began blocking and dodging her attacks.

When she grabbed his wrist on a punch he threw too slowly, he turned his wrist up then jerked his arm in a quick circle, dislodging her grip before she could pull him in.

She knocked his legs out from under him and pinned him. He escaped by rocking his hips hard and throwing Danvers' weight to one side. From her grin as she fell, Hansen could see she'd let that happen, but was impressed all the same.

Despite all their training, Schott was tiring, and Danvers easily pulled him into a choke hold. Schott had gotten his chin down, but was rapidly turning red. He tried to go limp but she tightened her grip and kicked at his ankle for his effort.

"Not cool," Schott groaned, trying to claw at her face, but she held it out of his reach, and punched him in the side for his effort.

"C'mon, Winn," she said, readjusting her grip. "Think."

Schott pushed off the ground and threw himself backward, taking Danvers with him. She tried to get out from under him, but he—unintentionally or not—still had a grip on her arm. They crashed to the ground, entangled, and Schott quickly pinned her.

"Am I done?" he gasped, holding down her flailing limbs.

She kneed him in the groin, then popped up as he collapsed.

"No," she said, coming to stand over him, "but now you are."

"That's low, Danvers," Schott groaned, as he extended his hand and allowed Danvers to pull him to his feet.

"You're wearing a cup."

"It still hurts."

She smiled at him. "But you passed."

Schott leaned hard against the water cooler. "Oh, thank God. No offense Hansen, but I could _not_ take another day of this. I didn't know it was possible for parts of my body to hurt this bad."

Danvers grinned wider then walked over to Hansen. "And per our agreement, you can return to duty tomorrow."

"What agreement?"

Danvers blinked in surprise, but quickly recovered. "Devon didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"Your ability to train Agent Schott has demonstrated your... admittedly rough... leadership qualities. Starting tomorrow, you'll be provisionally assigned as a handler for our in-town operations."

Hansen barely managed to bite back his grin. "Thank you, ma'am."

Danvers nodded, then walked over to Schott who was upright again and chattering about their bout. Hansen nodded his head at both of them, and left the training area, hopefully for the foreseeable future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: _Day 20: Betrayal_. Steve and Clint (Avengers) are assigned a long undercover op not long after the Battle of New York, and as the days wear on, Clint becomes concerned Steve's grasp on reality is slipping.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!


	8. Alt 1 (Day 21 Replacement): Truth Serum (Take Me Instead Part 2 of 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Alt 1 (Day 21 Replacement): Truth Serum. (Take Me Instead Part 2 of 2)_. Winn is sure they want him to retrieve the lost data. What they actually want is Supergirl's true identity.

_…just don't die on me_.

They had been some of the last words Winn had said to Alex before stepping into the middle of the warehouse, where someone had approached, and tossed him a set of handcuffs, which he had obediently clicked on.

The man had then motioned him forward, waiting for Winn to pass before sticking the barrel of his rifle in Winn's back, proding him forward.

They hurried out of the warehouse and onto a boat, which DEO intel had shown was empty. Apparently not.

"Where are we going?" Winn asked.

"Don't speak again," the man had replied.

Once they were on the boat, the man shoved Winn into the ground, searching him and relieving him of his watch and phone. From the plunk that followed, Winn suspected they'd been thrown overboard. It wasn't ideal, but he still had his tracker in his shoulder, which should still be transmitting if the boat wasn't a Faraday cage.

Then the hands were on the back of his neck, hauling him upright, and down the narrow stairs into a closed-off room. It was decorated quite differently from the top deck: where that had been white and warm and draped with soft, comfortable fabrics, this room was dark, grey and clinical. Dark metal cabinets ran the length of the room, and an assortment of tools hung on a pegboard above them.

The man hooked his foot around a metal chair and pulled it to the center of the room with a screech. He shoved Winn into it and stuck the gun in his chest while he found a roll of duct tape, pulled the tab up with his teeth and proceeded to tape Winn's chest, wrists—after unlocking one set of cuffs—and ankles to the chair.

"So you can get back when we lost?" the man then said, coming to stand in front of Winn. "And by that, you mean the records you deleted when you uploaded a virus to our system?"

Winn nodded. He'd backed up the data to a private DEO server, to check for viruses or other malware, before distributing it to the rest of the team for analyzing. He could pretend to hack into it from here and slowly bring information back, drawing out the time it would take for his team to hopefully find him.

"Interesting," the man said, scraping his hand down his jaw. He then pulled out the duct tape again, and laid a strip over Winn's mouth. "I'll consider it."

He disappeared behind Winn, and up the stairs, leaving Winn alone in the room by himself.

* * *

It took Alex a few hours to convince the orderly to bring her a set of crutches, pry herself from the bed, and hobble down to the command center.

"What do we have?"

"Alex!" J'onn was by her side in an instant. "You shouldn't be down here."

"The comms in my room just weren't cutting it." She dropped into a rolling chair and leaned her crutches against the workstation. She looked up at J'onn, as if daring for him to object, then rolled herself closer to Vasquez. "What do we have?"

"We're pinging Agent Schott's tracker, but the signal is unsteady."

"What do you mean?"

"It's triggering up and down the coast within a 100-mile radius."

Alex swore under her breath. Even with their best crew, they wouldn't be able to search an area of that size.

"What about overhead imagery?"

"We have a satellite in the area in about twenty minutes. Hopefully we can see something then."

"What about a fly-over?"

"We need to make it legit just in case they're monitoring the airspace, so we'll have that ready to go soon too."

Alex didn't need to tell them how important this was, or give them a rousing speech about breaking through the existing barriers of tech. She knew they were working their hardest, and could see the thinly veiled concern in the faces of those who were closest to Winn: Vasquez, Demos, Anderson.

"I want to be in that plane," she said to J'onn, who nodded.

"Then you better get going. Perry!"

A young agent who had been milling around snapped to attention.

"Yes, sir."

"Escort Agent Danvers to the airstrip immediately."

"Yes, sir!"

* * *

Winn had started out counting seconds, trying to keep some record of time in the sterile room, but it was becoming more and more difficult. He'd started over a few times, and had eventually given up, settling for only a ballpark estimate. He'd thoroughly examined every tool on the pegboard and had at least four different ideas of how he could use them to free himself, assuming he could get over there.

What he _hadn't_ heard though was the boat's engine gearing up. So either the room was soundproof, or they hadn't left the dock. Winn wasn't sure which option he preferred.

As the time ticked by, his worry for both his own situation and Alex continued to grow. He had signaled Kara before stepping into the aisle, so hopefully she had gotten Alex back to the DEO before... he wouldn't let himself entertain that thought any longer.

He had to go for a weapon. He swung his weight left and right, and managed to shift the chair a bit to the right. He repeated the process over and over, and was about a foot away from the cabinets, when he heard the door slam open behind him.

He froze, hoping the man wouldn't notice the chair was a significant distance from where it first started, but to no avail.

"Trying to escape, I see?" the man said, placing his hands on Winn's wrists and screeching the chair back to the middle of the room. He'd shed his tact gear, allowing Winn to commit his features to memory. "You were close too."

Mouth still duct-taped shut, Winn could only glare daggers at the man. Without warning, the man reached out and ripped the tape off of Winn's face. It simultaneously burned and stung like it was on fire, but Winn kept himself from crying out. He did however look up at the man and state something that would have gotten his mouth washed out as a kid. He braced himself for a retaliation, but the man just snickered.

"Quite a mouth you have on you," the man said with a laugh as he walked over to one of the floor-to-ceiling cabinets beside the work bench and opening the door. He then pulled out a vial and a needle, which he waved in the air, like a macabre magic show presentation.

"What's that?" Winn asked, unable to keep all of the fear out of his voice.

"Sodium pentothal."

"I said I'd get back the information we wiped," Winn was quick to say. "There's no need for that."

"Ah. You've incorrectly assumed that I want that data retrieved. We got it once, we can get it again."

Winn felt his stomach sink. "Then what do you want?"

"Other information." The man stepped closer, leaning into Winn's space. "I've read about you, Winslow Schott, Jr. About your involvement at Catco, at the DEO, with Supergirl."

"What?" It slipped out before Winn could bite it back. "That's ridiculous," he quickly tried to cover. "I work at the FBI as an intro-level analyst. I've never heard of the DEO. And me, knowing Supergirl? Ridiculous. If I did know her, don't you think she'd be here already?"

"Hmmm," was all the man said as he lifted the vial to the ceiling, flipped it upside down, and began filling the syringe. "And yet, the evidence on the internet contradicts you."

 _What evidence?_ Winn wanted desperately to know, but he wasn't about to ask this man that.

The man then slipped the vial into his pocket and began sliding the sleeve of Winn's tact suit up his arm.

"No!" Winn shouted, doing his best to dislodge the man, but taped to the chair as he was and with the man's iron grip on his arm, Winn was barely moving.

The syringe slipped beneath his skin, and Winn felt a cool sensation spreading as the plunger was depressed.

"Now," the man said as he straightened back up. "Who is Supergirl?"

 _Shit_.

* * *

Alex was just hauling herself into the plane when her phone rang.

"I think we've found him," Vasquez said, as soon as she answered. "We took all the pings and ran an algorithm to find the point equidistant from all of them."

"To explain the variance. That's genius."

"Thanks." Alex's phone beeped and she pulled it away from her ear to find a set of coordinates. "That's our best guess."

Alex put Vasquez on speakerphone, then leaned over to show the pilot the coordinates. He nodded, then adjusted course slightly.

"Bring him home, okay?" Vasquez said, not waiting for an answer before she hung up.

The point wasn't too far away from the dock, and so after only a few tense minutes in the air, they passed above it.

"I don't see anything," Alex said, craning her neck to look out the window.

"Me either, ma'am."

"Can you pass it again?"

"Not if we want to preserve our flight path, ma'am."

Alex groaned, then pulled out her phone and dialed Kara.

"Please tell me you have something," her sister said.

"Maybe. Vasquez traced the supposed origin of the pings, but there's nothing there. Can you check it out subtly?"

To her credit, Kara didn't object to Alex's 'subtle' comment. "On it," was all she said before she hung up.

Alex forwarded her the message, then continued to search out the window, just in case Vasquez's math was a bit off.

Her phone rang a minute later.

"Underwater," Vasquez said. "He's underwater. That's the only thing that could explain the distortion."

"Alive?" Alex asked, all the while knowing Vasquez would have no idea.

"Kara, he's underwater," Alex said, quickly pulling her sister into the call.

"I'm on it."

* * *

"You're doing well," the man said, taking a walk around Winn's chair. "But you will give in eventually."

"Never," Winn spat out, though he could tell that wasn't true. Kara's name was burning its way up his throat, and it was only the way he was clamping his jaw shut that was keeping it from escaping. It had almost slipped out just then, but he had kept it back. However, that act of defiance cost him: his head ached with a new vigor, his eyes stung, and his stomach rolled. He felt Kara's name rise slightly in his throat, and it took his entire concentration to force it down again. At this rate, it wouldn't be long before he lost full control of his body and the name slipped free.

 _C'mon, guys_ , he begged, pleaded, prayed.

The man took another lap, this time, stopping in front of Winn. "Who is Supergirl?"

Winn's jaw slipped open but he slammed it closed again. Not trusting himself to speak, he just shook his head.

The slight tremors running through his body increased until he felt himself shaking against the chair.

"You'll tell us eventually," the man said with a grin.

Then, there was a screech of metal and the man stumbled to the right. Winn's chair leaned to the left and he wasn't able to keep himself from falling over. He crashed into the metal ground, stealing his concentration as the wind was knocked out of him.

"What was that?" the man cursed as he scrambled out of the room.

Wheezing, all Winn could do was struggle to breathe.

Then he had a hazy idea. He turned his head into the ground, away from any camera there might be, and mouthed, "Kara Danvers" into the metal floor.

He waited for his symptoms to let up, and thankfully, _blessedly_ , they did.

He sagged against the floor in relief… which ended up being short-lived as he heard footsteps on the stairs. The man stumbled back into the room, landing on his knees next to Winn.

"Who is Supergirl!" he shouted, throwing Winn over so he was resting on his back, his legs, still bound to the chair, stuck up in the air at ninety degrees.

"Who is she?" The man was frantic now, desperate, which meant someone was here.

The ground shifted yet again and Winn's head whacked against the metal floor as it settled.

"Who is she!" the man shouted.

Winn felt the name rising, and did his best to bite it back, but it slid out of his throat and into his mouth.

_No, no, no, no, no, no, no._

"Yes!" the man shrieked. "Tell me!"

Then there was a flash of red and he was gone and then Kara was beside him, ripping him out of the chair in one smooth motion and pulling him into her arms.

"Cameras," he spat through ground teeth, hoping she'd understand him.

She must have, for an electrifying second later, he heard her laser-vision melt them. And not a second too soon.

"Kara Danvers," he mumbled into the House of El crest. "Kara Danvers."

"What?" Kara asked, looking down at him.

"They wanted to know who Supergirl was," Winn said. "Shot me up with truth serum."

"Alex!" Kara was shouting, but Winn barely heard her in his desperation to fully answer her question.

"I kept it from them, I did. But man it was close. Please don't ask me anything until it's out of my system." He knew he was talking fast, faster than even was normal for him, and he just hoped he was coherent.

Then her grip around him tightened and they were moving. The next thing Winn knew he was on the dock, with Alex leaning over him.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Winn nodded, but that wasn't sufficient for the serum, and he was too tired to stop it. "A little banged up, actually. Head hurts, stomach is killing me, but I'll live."

Alex's head disappeared and Winn heard her say something about the DEO, before Kara's grip tightened and they were flying again, and Winn barely had time to tell her he was about to throw up, before a bucket was being shoved in his face and a hand rubbing his back.

When he was done, he looked up to see Dr. Kirby standing beside Kara.

"It's okay, Winn," she said, coming at him with another needle.

"No," he said, sliding back in the bed.

Kara was beside him a split second later. "It's a sedative, Winn, so they can get the antidote in you."

He forced himself to relax then, with the last vestiges of his concentration. He trusted her. And Dr. Kirby.

"Okay," he said, trying to keep himself from resisting, as Dr. Kirby slid a needle into his elbow, and he was lost to the world.

* * *

When he woke up, Kara was sitting by his bed and his head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

"Is it gone?" he rasped out.

Kara nodded. "It should be."

He pushed himself up slightly, so he could make eye contact with Kara, and demanded, "Ask me something."

"Who was your first crush?"

Winn waited for his body to react, for his head to hurt, and nothing happened. He grinned. "I'm not gonna say."

Kara's grin matched his own. "I'm glad." She leaned over and hugged him as gently as she could. Then she pulled back and, forehead crinkled, began, "I'm so sorry, Winn for—"

Too tired for the rest of her apology, Winn just tightened his hand around hers. "It's okay, Kara. I knew what I was getting into."

"You shouldn't have had to." Then, more quietly, he heard her say, "None of you should have."

"Comes with the job," Winn said, forcing as much truth as he could into the words. "Besides, you're always there for us."

Kara still looked uncertain, but before Kara could respond, a thought lanced through his brain. "Alex! How's Alex?"

"It was rough going for a while," Kara said slowly, "but she's fine now, and set to make a full recovery if she takes it easy." Kara cocked her head. "Which she isn't."

She pointed at the door, and a few seconds later, Alex rolled herself through it.

"Why didn't you tell me he was awake?" she demanded, within an instant of seeing Winn propped up in his hospital bed.

"He just woke up," Kara lied. Very badly. But Winn was too tired to call her on it.

Alex just tilted her head knowingly but let it drop. "You're fine, really?" she asked Winn, who nodded.

"Kara says I will be."

" _Dr. Kirby_ says you will be," Kara corrected.

"Good." Alex took a deep breath and Winn felt himself flinching preemptively for the tongue-lashing he was certain was going to follow. Sure enough, it was the standard, "if you ever do something so stupid again, I'll kill you myself," spiel repeated about five times with four other death threats attached to the end. It was really bad this time, because Alex even ended with the "so many other supers working around you, you couldn't have drawn him out until one of them arrived?"

"I wasn't going to let you bleed out," Winn said, cutting her off, and almost immediately flinching back further as her expression hardened.

"And what was I supposed to do if he killed you before he found you? Just go on with my life, knowing you sacrificed yourself for me?"

Winn wasn't going to back down this time. "At least you had a chance. You wouldn't have, if they'd kept on firing."

"I am a trained—"

"Alex," Kara interrupted softly.

Alex looked unhappily at her sister, but after a long moment of a silent conversation between the two sisters, her posture softened. "Just promise that isn't your first instinct every time something happens to one of us?" she pleaded. "We need you more than you seem to understand."

Winn bit his lip to keep it from wobbling, as he nodded. "I can promise I'll try."

"Good." Alex leaned forward and took his free hand. "I'm really glad you're alright."

Winn pulled his arm in, and hers along with it. "Me too," he said, grabbing Kara's hand and piling them both over his heart, squeezing tight with the utter relief of having been saved and discovering his friends—his family—had survived as well. "Me too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of _Supergirl_ Febuwhump!
> 
> Up next, our last _Timeless prompt: _Day 22: Burned_. While escaping Flynn, The Time Team is trapped in a burning barn._
> 
> _Thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought! (Find me on Tumblr: usaOneTwoThree!)_


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